BAKUNIN THE APOSTLE OF NIHILISM. 22$
longer mere republicans. Of what avail to overthrow a king
more devoted to his country than the best president ? Many
of us, however, are Socialists.” At Bologna, the Prefect,
Marquis Gravina, said to me, “ I do not think that there are
more than five hundred working men regularly affiliated to
the International, but almost all of them have adopted its
ideas.” In the working men’s societies visited by me I
heard repeatedly, “ Those who do nothing live in opulence ;
we labour and yet we are in extreme want That cannot
last”
The first working men's societies in Italy, dating from 1848,
were founded under the inspiration of MazzinL In 1863 they
numbered 453 with 111,608 members, and in 1875 more than
1000 with about 200,000 associates. A good many of them—
over 300—were federated so as to constitute the “ Fraternal
Union of Working Men’s Societies ” {^Società operaie italiane
affratellate). They have a managing committee sitting at Rome,
where a congress is held almost every year. Mazzini, after his
secession from the International, became more and more hostile
to it in proportion as the influence of Bakunin over it increased.
He reproached it, in the first place, for denying the notion of
God, the sole basis of right in the name of which the labourers
could demand justice ; secondly, for suppressing the Father-
land, the essential form of human brotherhood ; and lastly, for
abolishing property, the sole incentive to the production of
more than men require for their immediate wants, and conse
quently the sole agent of economic progress. He did not
reject social reforms. On the contrary, he sought for a system
which would ensure the union of capital and labour, and would
transform property without abolishing it ; but he had a horror
of Communism. He condemned with indignation the Com
mune of Paris, just as, in 1848, he had cursed “ the days of
June.” The Anarchists reproached him bitterly for doing so
^Mazzini was not an Economist. He looked for salvation to
• Published in 1871, without name of printer or place of publication.
Q
